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Charters'  ^rofosgional  Utiirarj). 


" A  Pot  of  Green  Feathers." 


A  STUDY  IN  APPERCEPTION. 


A  DISCUSSION   OF  THE   MENTAL  OPERATIONS   BY  WHICH 
WE  acquire"  KNOWLEDGE. 


STATENORMALSCHOGL, 

BY 

f.   G.    ROOPER,    M.A., 

INSPECTOR    OF    SCHOOLS    IN    ENGLAND. 


NEW  YORK  AND  CHICAGO : 

E.   L.   KELLOGG  &   CO 


Published  by  special  permission  of  the  author.  This  edition  nas  been 
carefully  compared  with  the  original,  and  is  the  only  correct  one  on  the 
market  at  this  time. 


Copyright,  1892,  bt 

E.  L.  KELLOGG  &  CO., 

NEW  YORK. 


«  A  POT  OF  GREEN  FEATHERS" 


LB 

iotn 


CONTENTS. 


Introduction, 5 

PART 

I.  Some  Questions, 7 

II.  Explanation  of  Perception, 10 

III.  Assimilation  of  Impressions, 12 

IV.  The  Lesson  for  Teachers,  ,        .        .        .        .31 

V.  Advanced  Stages 34 

VI.  The  Object  of  Learning, 4° 

3 


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INTRODUCTION. 


As  the  title  of  this  paper  seems  a  little  strange,  a  few 
words  are  necessary  to  explain  its  meaning.     Some  years 
ago  I  was  listening  to  an  object-lesson  given  to  a  class  of 
very  young  children  by  a  pupil-teacher  who  chose  for 
her  subject  a  pot  of  beautiful  fresh  green  ferns.     She 
^  began  by  holding  up  the  plant  before  the  class  and  ask- 
ing whether  any  child  could  say  what  it  was.     At  first 
,    no  child  answered,  but  presently  a  little  girl  said,  "  It  is 
i   a  pot  of  green  feathers."     Thereupon  the  teacher  turned 
to  me  and  said,  "  Poor  little   thing !     She  knows  no 
better." 

But  I  fell  a-thinking  on  the  matter.  Did  the  child 
really  suppose  that  the  ferns  were  feathers  ?  Or  did  she 
rather  use  the  name  of  a  familiar  thing  to  describe  what 
she  knew  to  be  different,  and  yet  noticed  to  be  in  some 
respects  like  ?  This  train  of  thought  led  me  to  put  to- 
gether what  I  knew  of  perception,  and  the  following  is 
the  result  of  my  labors. 

The  principal  authority  which  I  have  closely  followed 
is  Dr.  Karl  Lange's  Apperzeption,  but  I  have  derived 
much  help  from  Herbart's  Psychology,  Bernard  Perez's 
"  First  Three  Years  of  Childhood,"  Eomane's  Mental 
Evolution  in  Man,  and  the  lectures  of  the  late  Professor 
T.  H.  Green. 

5 


"THE  POT  OF  GREEN  FEATHERS." 


Some  Questions. — What  do  we  know  of  the  outer 
world  ?  Of  that  which  is  not  self  ?  Of  objects  ?  How 
do  we  know  anything  of  the  outer  world?  We  receive 
impressions  from  it  ;  a  table  feels  hard,  a  book  looks 
brown  in  color,  oblong  in  shape,  and  we  say  it  is  thick 
or  thin.  Are  we  simply  receivers  of  these  impressions 
— hard,  brown,  oblong?  Are  our  minds  inactive  in  the 
process  of  getting  to  know  these  impressions  ?  Or  are 
they  active  ?  Are  lumps  of  the  outside  somehow  forced 
in  upon  our  minds  entire  without  corresponding  action 
on  the  minds'  part  ? 

What  the  Mind  Does.— -No  !  our  minds  are  not  pas- 
sive; the  opposite  is  true.  Through  the  senses  the  mind 
receives  impressions,  but  these  contributions  from  the 
senses  would  not  be  objects  of  knowledge,  would  not  be 
interpreted,  would  not  be  recognized  unless  the  mind 
itself  worked  upon  them  and  assimilated  them,  convert- 
ing the  unknown  stimulus  from  without  into  a  sensation 

7 


8  "  THE  POT  OF  GREEN  FEATHERS." 

which  we  can  hold  in  our  thoughts  and  compare  with 
other  sensations  within  us.  The  mind  converts  the  un- 
known stimulus  from  without  into  the  known  sensation. 
The  outer  world  then  is  no  more  wholly  the  outer  world 
when  we  know  it.  In  our  knowledge  of  the  outer  world 
there  is  always  something  contributed  by  the  mind 
itself. 

Different  Minds  receive  Impressions  Differently. — The 
truth  that  the  mind  adds  to  and  changes  the  impressions 
which  it  receives  through  the  senses  is  illustrated  by  the 
very  different  conceptions  which  exactly  the  same  land- 
scape gives  rise  to  in  different  people.  The  geologist 
can  tell  you  of  the  strata,  the  botanist  of  the  vegeta- 
tion, the  landscape  painter  of  the  light  and  shade,  the 
various  coloring,  and  the  grouping  of  the  objects,  and 
yet,  perhaps,  no  one  of  them  notices  exactly  what  the 
others  notice.  A  plank  of  wood,  again,  seems  a  simple 
object,  and  able  to  tell  one  tale  to  all,  but  how  much  it 
tells  to  a  joiner,  concerning  which  it  is  dumb  to  a  casual 
observer. 
As  we  Advance   Impressions  affect  us  Differently. — 

v  Or  again,  visit  as  a  grown  man  the  school-room,  or  play- 
ground where  you  played  as  a  child,  especially  if  you 
have  not  visited  the  scene  in  the  interval.  How  changed 
all  seems  !  The  rooms  that  used  to  look  so  large  have 
become  dwarfed.  The  tremendous  long  throw  which 
you  used  to  make  with  a  ball  from  one  end  of  the  play- 
ground to  the  other,  to  what  a  narrow  distance  it  has 
shrunk  !     Yet  the  room  and  the  ground  are  what  they 

^  were.     It  is  your  mind  that  has  changed.     The  change 
in  your  mind  has  brought  about  for  you  a  change  in  the 


SOME   QUESTIONS.  9 

thing.  Two  people,  then,  or  even  one's  self  at  different 
times  of  one's  life,  may  perceive  the  same  object  without 
obtaining  the  same  perception.  Yet  if  the  external  ob- 
ject stamped  itself  on  the  mind  as  a  seal  or  die  stamps 
itself  on  wax,  if  the  mind  were  as  passive  as  wax,  how 
could  one  object  give  rise  to  such  different  impressions  ? 
The  difference  must  be  due  to  the  mind. 

New  Impressions  referred  to  Previous  Ones. — Neither 
is  it  difficult  to  understand  that  this  is  so  if  we  think 
what  is  the  nature  of  the  process  by  which  the  mind 
interprets  the  impressions  which  it  receives  from  out- 
ward objects.  When  the  mind  receives  an  impression  it  !— 
refers  it  to  a  previously  received  impression  that  hap- 
pens to  resemble  it.  Thus  every  new  impression  is  inter- 
preted by  means  of  old  ones,  and  consequently  every 
new  perception  is  affected,  colored  as  it  were,  by  the 
already  acquired  contents  of  the  mind,  and  nothing  can 
be  known  or  recognized  at  all  until  reference  and  com- 
parison have  been  made  to  previous  perception. 


IO  "  THE  POT  OF  GREEN  FEATHERS." 


II. 


Explanation  of  Perception. — My  object  to-day  is  to 
make  this  point,  perception,  which  I  admit  is  not  easy, 
as  clear  as  I  can  make  it.  Perception  of  an  object  is 
not  so  simple  a  matter  as  at  first  it  seems  to  be.  "  Oh/' 
some  one  will  say,  "  simple  enough  !  A  dog  runs  by 
me;  through  my  senses  I  receive  sensations  of  the  ani- 
mal, and  I  know  that  I  see  a  dog."  But  this  is  no  per- 
fect account;  for  suppose  two  strange  animals,  say,  a 
Tasmanian  Devil  and  an  Ornithorhynclius,  come  up  the 
street  together,  my  senses  will  make  me  aware  of  their 
presence,  but  if  I  have  not  learned  anything  about 
them  previously,  I  shall  not  know,  I  do  not  say  merely 
their  names,  but  not  even  their  exact  shape  and  dis- 
tinguishing marks.  I  shall  say,  "What  in  the  name  o 
wonder  are  they  ?  "  After  a  little  looking  at  the  Strang 
pair  I  should  probably  say,  "  One  is  a  kind  of  bear  and 
the  other  is  a  kind  of  duck — a  funny  bear  and  a  funny 
duck." 

Explanation  continued. — Observe  how  the  process  of 
interpretation  of  my  impressions  goes  on.  Looking  at 
the  Tasmanian  Devil,  my  impressions  divide  themselves 
into  two  classes:  one  set  of  impressions  resembles 
impressions  of  bears  which  I  have  previously  re- 
ceived,  while    the    other    set    finds    nothing    already 


EXPLANATION  OF  PERCEPTION. 


Jl 


existing  in  the  mind  to  which  it  can  attach  itself.  A 
kind  of  fight  goes  on  between  new  and  old.  In  the  end 
the  points  of  resemblance  overpower  the  points  of  dis- 
similarity, and  I  judge  the  one  animal  (the  T.  D.),  in 
spite  of  much  unlikeness,  to  be  a  kind  of  bear,  in  doing 
which  I  am  wrong,  as  it  is  a  kind  of  marsupial,  and  in 
judging,  by  a  similar  process,  the  Ornithorhynchus  to  be 
a  sort  of  bird,  because  of  its  bill,  the  mind  equally  makes 
a  mistake,  or,  as  we  say,  receives  a  wrong  impression. 
\  Two  Points  to  be  Noted. — There  are  then  at  least  two 
parts  in  the  process  of  knowing  any  object.  First  of 
all  there  is  the  excitation  of  our  nerves,  the  nervous 
stimulus  which  makes  us  feel  that  we  have  a  feeling, 
but  does  not  explain  what  the  feeling  is,  and  secondly 
there  is  the  interpretation  of  the  feeling  by  a  mental 
action  through  which  the  undetermined  and  as  yet  un- 
known sensations  or  gifts  of  the  senses  are  referred  to 
known  impressions  and  explained. 


h 


12     "  THE   POT  OF  GREEN  FEATHERS." 


III. 


Assimilation  of  Impressions. — It  is  this  act  of  mental 
assimilation  of  the  impressions  which  we  receive  from 
external  objects  that  I  wish  to  discuss  to-day.  I  am 
not  dealing  with  the  question  of  the  origin  of  our  im- 
pressions or  the  physiological  basis  of  them,  but  with 
the  growth  of  knowledge  in  the  understanding  by  the 
working  of  the  mind  upon  impressions.  I  think  that 
modern  psychologists  have  carried  the  analysis  of  this 
process  sufficiently  far  for  the  results  of  their  studies  to 
be  of  practical  value  to  teachers  and  parents.  If  we 
have  to  teach,  is  it  not  useful  to  know  how  the  mind 
acquires  knowledge  ?  • 

An  Example. — Take  an  object  and  set  it  before  a 
child — say  a  fern.  If  the  child  has  never  seen  a  fern 
before,  he  knows  not  what  it  is.  Impressions  of  it  he 
receives,  but  he  cannot  interpret  them  adequately.  The 
botaniot  locks  at  the  same  fern,  and  not  only  sees  and 
knows  that  it  is  jv  fern,  but  also  what  kind  it  is,  how  it 
is  distinguished  from  other  ferns,  where  it  grows,  how 
it  may  be  cultivated,  and  all  about  it.  The  difference 
between  the  knowledge  which  the  sight  of  the  fern 
gives  to  the  child  axid  to  the  botanist  does  not  depend 
ipon  the  fern,  but  upon  the  state  of  mind  of  the  two 
observers.    The  mind  adds  infinitely  more  to  the  im- 


ASSIMILATION  OF  IMPRESSIONS.  1 3 

pression  received  when  it  is  the  botanist's  mind  which 
receives  it,  than  when  it  is  the  comparatively  empty 
and  uninformed  mind  of  the  child.  What  you  can  know 
of  an  object  depends  upon  what  you  already  know  both 
of  it  and  of  other  things.  Philosophers  and  poets  like 
Kingsley,  Carlyle,  Herder,  Goethe,  as  well  as  education- 
ists and  psychologists,  impress  on  us  this  truth :  "  In 
regarding  an  object  we  can  only  see  what  we  have  been 
trained  to  see."  * 

Another  Example. — Impressions,  then,  have  to  be  in- 
terpreted before  they  are  clear  to  us.  What  is  the  easi- 
est case  of  our  interpreting  impressions  ?  Perhaps  some 
such  as  the  following :  I  see  a  man  a  little  way  off  and 
say  to  myself,  "  Here  comes  my  brother."  I  have  so 
often  recognized  my  brother  that  the  whole  process  of 
recognition  goes  on  in  my  mind  without  any  check  or 
hindrance.  The  existing  mental  conception  of  my 
brother  masters  completely  and  promptly  the  fresh  im- 
pressions which  his  present  appearance  makes  upon  me. 
The  identification  of  the  new  and  the  old  is  uninter- 
rupted, prompt,  and  immediate.  The  same  speed  and 
accuracy  of  interpretation  is  observable  in  his  prompt 

*  Carlyle. — We  can  only  see  what  we  have  been  trained  to 
see. 

Goethe, — We  only  hear  what  we  know. 

Herder. — What  we  are  not  we  can  neither  know  nor  feel. 

Rousseau. — We  can  neither  know,  nor  touch,  nor  see,  except 
as  we  have  learned. 

In  other  words,  the  present  impression  produces  only  such  an 
effect  on  the  mind  as  the  past  history  of  the  mind  renders  pos- 
sible. 


14  "THE  POT  OF  GREEN  FEATHERS:' 

and  correct  recognition  by  a  good  reader  of  the  words 
and  sentences  in  his  book. 

A  Difficult  Example. — Now  take  an  opposite  case, 
when  it  is  hard  instead  of  easy  to  interpret  impressions 
Suppose  that  we  see  something  which  is  quite  new  to 
us.  Suppose  that  the  new  impressions  do  not  connect 
themselves  with  any  previously  assimilated  impressions, 
and  that  try  as  we  may  to  refer  them  to  something 
known,  all  is  in  vain.  Then  we  feel  puzzled :  a  hin- 
drance, or  check,  or  obstruction  occurs  in  our  minds. 
If  the  impression  be  very  strong,  it  may  cause  us  to 
"  lose  our  heads/'  as  we  say,  or  it  may  even  overwhelm 
us. 

The  Impression  may  be  "  too  much  "  for  us. — It  is  nar- 
rated that  one  of  the  natives  of  the  interior  of  Africa 
who  was  accompanying  Livingstone  to  Europe  no 
sooner  found  himself  on  the  great  Indian  Ocean  with 
nothing  but  heaving  waters  far  and  near  in  his  view, 
than  he  became  overpowered  by  the  immense  impression 
which  this  new  experience  made  upon  his  mind,  and 
flung  himself  overboard  into  the  waves,  never  to  rise 
again.  Similarly  at  the  Paris  Exhibition,  every  even- 
ing when  the  gun  is  fired  at  the  Eiffel  Tower  for  the 
last  time  at  ten  o'clock,  it  is  not  unusual  to  see  a  sort  of 
frenzy  among  the  visitors.  Under  the  already  strong 
impression  produced  by  the  electric  illuminations,  the 
luminous  fountains,  and  the  varied  magnificence  of  the 
great  show,  some  people  seem  to  be  seized  with  a  veri- 
table panic.  Cries  of  admiration  escape  from  some, 
and  terror  from  others,  followed  by  fainting,  attacks  of 
hysteria,  and  prostration. 


ASSIMILATION  OF  IMPRESSIONS.  15 

Another  Case. — Similar  shocks  occasionally  prove 
fatal.  Only  in  September  last,  a  little  girl,  four  years 
old,  was  standing  on  the  platform,  near  Sittingbourne, 
with  her  parents,  who  were  on  their  way  to  Kent  for 
the  hop-picking  season,  when  an  express  train  dashed 
through  the  station.  The  little  one  was  terror-stricken, 
and  on  the  journey  down  screamed  every  time  an  engine 
came  within  sight  or  hearing.  She  dropped  dead.  The 
doctor  ascribed  death  to  the  shock. 

To  assimilate  then  a  wholly  new  impression  is  neces- 
sarily a  task  of  some  difficulty,  but  the  results  are 
luckily  not  always  so  sensational  as  those  which  I  have 
just  described,  and  the  following  is  an  account  of  what 
more  usually  takes  place. 

What  Becomes  of  the  New  Impression. — If  the  new 
impression  is  not  of  a  nature  to  make  us  feel  strongly, 
and  if  it  is  isolated  and  unconnected  with  any  other 
knowledge  present  to  our  minds,  it  probably  passes 
away  quickly  and  sinks  into  oblivion,  just  as  a  little 
child  may  take  notice  of  a  shooting-star  on  a  summer 
night,  and  after  wondering  for  a  moment  thinks  of  it 
no  more;  if,  however,  our  feelings  are  excited,  and  if 
the  object  which  gives  the  impression  remains  before 
us  long  enough  to  make  the  impression  strong,  then  the 
impression  becomes  associated  with  the  feelings  and 
the  will  comes  into  play,  in  consequence  of  which  we 
determine  to  remember  the  new  impression,  and  to  seek 
an  explanation  of  it.  With  this  object  the  mind 
searches  its  previous  stock  of  ideas  more  particularly, 
comparing  the  new  with  the  old>  rejecting  the  totally 
unlike  and  retaining  the  like  or  most  like,  and  in  the 


16  "THE  POT  OF  GREEN  FEATHERS:' 

end  it  overcomes  the  obstacle  to  assimilation  and  fine 
a  place  for  the  new  along  with  the  old  mental  store 
thereby  enriching  itself,  consciously  or  unconsciously- 
unconsciously  in  earlier  years,  and  consciously  aftej 
wards. 

The  White  Violet. — As  an  instance,  I  will  suppose 
child  who  has  only  seen  blue  violets  finds  a  white  on 
Of  his  impressions  of  the  white  flower,  some  are  ne~ 
and  some  are  old.     The  greater  part  are  old,  and  lea 
him  to  infer  that  he  sees  a  violet;  but  the  impression  c 
whiteness  is  new,  and  leads  him  to  say,  "  This  is  not 
violet/'    Let  us  represent  the  characteristics  by  whic 
he  recognizes  a  blue  violet  by  the  letters  A  B  C  D,  th 
D  standing  for  the  color  blue  and  ABO  for  all  th 
rest  of  the  flower.    When  now  he  finds  a  white  violet  h 
again  notes  A  B  C  as  before,  but  instead  of  D,  the  colo 
blue,  he  receives  the  impression  E,  the  color  white 
Had  the  color  been  the  same,  the  impression  of  the 
flower  would  have  coincided  with  previous  impressions 
of  violets,  but  the  difference  between  D  and  E  causes 
an  obstruction  or  hindrance  to  this  inference.     The 
mind  is  not  at  ease  with  itself;  the  agreement  of  new 
and  old  only  reaches  a  certain  way.    The  old  mental 
image  and  the  newly  acquired  one  don't  exactly  tally. 

White  Yiolet  (continued). — What  happens  ?  In  the 
two  mental  images  now  present  and  side  by  side  in  the 
mind,  the  new  and  the  old  (the  new  being  more  vivid, 
the  old  being  more  firmly  established),  the  like  elements, 
namely,  ABO,  strengthen  each  other  and  unite  to  make 
a  clear  image,  while  the  unlike  elements  D  and  E,  the 
blue  and  the  white*  obstruct  each  other,  become  dim 


ASSIMILATION  OF  IMPRESSIONS.  \"J 

and  at  last  obscured.  The  like  elements  in  the  end 
overcome  the  obstruction  caused  by  the  unlike  and  beat 
them  out  of  the  field  of  mental  vision,  so  that  the  two 
partly  resembling  impressions  become  blended  or  fused, 
as  by  mental  smelting,  into  one.  The  two  are  recog- 
nized as  one  by  the  mind.  The  old  appropriates  or 
assimilates  the  new.  The  child  finds  an  old  .Expression 
for  the  new  impression,  and  says  to  itself,  "  It  is  a 
violet." 

The  New  Impression  may  Join  at  Several  Points. — Of 
course  an  impression  need  not  belong  to  only  one  previ- 
ously acquired  impression  or  group  of  impressions;  it 
may  be  connected  with  other  groups.  In  this  case  it 
will  be  recalled  to  consciousness  on  more  frequent  occa- 
sions than  if  it  belonged  to  one  other  mental  state  only. 
Hence  a  new  impression,  if  you  give  it  time,  may  find 
for  itself  many  more  points  of  attachment  with  previous 
impressions  and  ideas  than  it  found  just  at  first. 

Example. — For  instance,  I  may  visit  Amiens  Cathe- 
dral. Presently  when  I  have  admired  the  building  I 
recall  to  mind  various  historic  events  that  took  place  St 
the  capital  of  Picardy.  I  remember  that  Julius  Caesar 
started  thence  to  conquer  Britain,  that  Peter  the  Hermit 
was  born  there,  and  that  not  far  off  Edward  III.  won 
the  battle  of  Crecy,  and  that  its  name  often  comes  up 
in  the  long  hundred  years'  war.  I  think  of  the  Peace 
of  Amiens  in  1802,  the  visit  of  Bonaparte  to  Amiens 
when  he  prepared  to  invade  England,  lastly  of  the 
German  army  in  1870.  One  impression  calls  up 
another,  and  the  whole  mass  together  strengthen  and 
confirm  and  amplify  the  original  impression.     Isolated, 


1 8  "  THE  POT  OF  GREEN  FEATHERS." 

these  separate  events  are  of  less  interest  than  when 
grouped  together  with  my  actual  inspection  of  the 
ancient  building. 

Why  we  rightly  Delay  in  Deciding. — A  wise  man, 
therefore  (if  I  may  draw  a  passing  moral),  does  not,  if 
he  can  help  it,  decide  or  act  in  a  hurry,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  new  impressions,  but  he  will  give  them  time 
to  find  points  of  connections  with  old  impressions. 
What  may  to-day  seem  irreconcilable  with  truth,  or 
honor,  or  happiness,  may  prove  when  time  has  been 
allowed  for  assimilation  inconsistent  neither  with  sin- 
cerity, nor  good  name,  nor  good  fortune. 

The  Plea  of  the  Educator. — Educationists,  like  Mr. 
Arnold,  also,  will  continue  to  implore  the  public  to 
simplify  the  studies  of  children,  being  convinced  that 
unless  the  mind  has  leisure  to  work  by  itself  on  the  stuff 
or  matter  which  is  prescribed  to  it  by  the  teacher,  the 
thinking  faculty,  on  which  all  progress  depends,  will  be 
paralyzed,  and  dead  knowledge  will  oe  a  substitute  for 
living.  The  mind  will  have  no  power  of  expanding 
from  within,  for  it  will  become  a  passive  recipient  of 
knowledge,  only  able  to  discharge  again  what  has  been 
stuffed  into  it,  and  quite  powerless  to  make  fresh  com- 
binations and  discoveries.  Cram  is  the  rapid  acquisition 
of  a  great  deal  of  knowledge.  Learning  so  acquired, 
though  useful  for  a  barrister,  has  less  educational  value 
than  the  public  believe,  for  it  does  not  promote  but 
rather  tends  to  destroy  the  active  and  constructive 
powers  of  the  mind. 

Effect  of  the  Assimilating  Effect. — When  the  mindi 
has  much  difficulty  to  overcome  in  assimilating  a  new  ! 


ASSIMILATION  OF  IMPRESSIONS.  1 9 

impression,  and  hence  has  to  spend  time  in  so  doing,  it 
is  benefited  by  the  process,  for  in  the  first  place  the 
necessity  of  care,  caution,  and  accurate  observation,  and 
much  rummaging  (if  I  may  venture  on  the  expression) 
among  the  ideas  in  the  mind  tend  to  sharpen  the  senses, 
the  sight,  the  touch,  the  hearing,  and  the  rest,  by  mak- 
ing them  sensitive  to  fine  shades  which  might  otherwise 
escape  us,  and  in  the  second  to  amplify  and  enlarge 
meagre  impressions. 

How  we  know  Solids. — The  eye,  by  itself,  for  example, 
only  reveals  to  us  surfaces.  How  then  do  we  seem  to 
see  solid  bodies  ?  A  baby  stretches  out  its  hand  for  the 
moon :  how  is  it  that  what  seems  so  near  to  him  looks 
so  far  off  from  us  ?  Because  in  our  case  the  impressions 
conveyed  by  the  eye  are  supplemented  by  the  impres- 
sions received  through  the  touch,  and  the  two  distinct 
sets  of  impressions  combined  together  in  the  mind  fur- 
nish us  with  the  conception  of  a  third  dimension,  besides 
length  and  breadth — viz.,  depth.  The  child  who  has 
not  yet  got  so  far  as  to  have  sufficiently  often  united 
the  impressions  derived  from  looking,  with  those  derived 
from  touching  and  moving  cannot  rightly  interpret  the 
impressions  which  he  receives.  The  moon  seems  quite 
close  to  him. 

Unexamined  Impressions  do  not  yield  Clearness. — 
Impressions,  on  the  other  hand,  which  pass  easily  into 
their  place  in  the  mind  do  not  always  tend  to  clearness 
of  ideas.  People  may  look  at  an  object  hundreds  of 
times  for  a  special  purpose,  and  beyond  serving  that  pur- 
pose get  no  permanent  impressions  at  all.  Many  people 
who  look  at  a  clock  or  watch  many  times  a  day  cannot 


20  ''THE   POT  OF  GREEN  FEATHERS." 

at  once,  when  asked,  draw  from  memory  a  dial  with  the 
hours  correctly  placed  upon  it. 

Why  Assimilation  may  Mislead.— The  process  of  as- 
similation may  even  mislead  just  as  familiarity  with  an 
object  may  hinder  accurate  observation.  Goethe  says 
there  is  a  moment  in  his  life  when  a  young  man  can  see 
no  blemish  in  the  lady  he  loves,  and  no  fault  in  the 
author  he  admires.  A  man  in  love  may  think  that  his 
Angelina  sings  divinely  sweet,  though  her  voice  is  like 
a  crow's.  He  interprets  the  impressions  which  he  re- 
ceives according  to  previously  formed  impressions. 

Fault  not  with  Senses.— This  leads  us  to  see  that  it 
is  not  right  to  say,  as  we  sometimes  do  say,  "My  senses 
play  me  false."  The  senses  do  not  lie.  The  ear  does 
not  in  the  instance  in  question  convey  sweet  sounds. 
The  sense  of  hearing  does  not  judge  at  all.  The  ear 
conveys  the  sound  truly  enough.  The  judgment  con- 
cerning the  sound  is  made  in  the  mind  of  the  listener. 
This  judgment  it  is  which  is  falsified  by  prejudice,  the 
lover  being  naturally  prepossessed  in  favor  of  his  mis- 
tress. 

So  the  wanderer  in  the  graveyard  by  night  in  the 
uncertain  light  of  the  misty  moon  judges  a  tall  grave- 
stone to  be  a  "  sheeted  ghost."  His  eye  is  not  at  fault. 
His  judgment  is.  He  receives  the  impression  from  the 
object  truly,  but  he  refers  his  impression  to  the  wrong 
group  or  store  of  previous  knowledge.  He  should  refer 
it  to  optical  phenomena,  diffraction  of  light  and  the 
rest.  He  actually  does  think  of  pictures  and  stories  of 
vague  appearances  of  human  shapes  without  human 
substance,  and  all  the  superstitious  imaginings  of  poor 


ASSIMILATION   OF  IMPRESSIONS.  21 

frail  human  nature.  His  .senses  are  not  under  control 
of  hia  reason. 

The  Perceptive  Process  modifies  Previous  Knowledge. 
— "We  have  seen  then  how  each  impression  that  we  re- 
ceive from  external  objects  is  consciously  or  unconsci- 
ously interpreted  and  made  known  to  us  by  a  kind  of 
internal  classification  through  which  it  is  referred  to  that 
part  of  our  store  of  knowledge  to  which  its  resemblance 
connects  it.  "We  have  now  to  see  that  in  this  process 
of  interpretation  of  a  new  impression  by  that  which  is 
old,  the  previously  existing  mass  of  knowledge  which  in- 
terprets the  new  is  itself  modified  and  made  clearer. 

Example. — Suppose  a  child  lives  in  the  flat  of  the  fen 
near  Cambridge,  and  that  by  going  to  the  Gogmagog 
Hills  he  learns  to  form  an  idea  of  what  a  hill  is.  Then 
suppose  him  to  be  transported  to  Birmingham,  where 
he  goes  out  to  the  Liekey  Hills.  These  he  will  recog- 
nize as  hills  by  aid  of  the  previous  conception  of  a  hill 
which  he  has  formed  in  his  mind,  but  at  the  same  time 
he  enlarges  his  ideas  of  a  hill,  and  if  he  travels  further 
west  and  climbs  the  Malvern  Hills  and  the  Welsh  Hills 
he  will  still  further  amplify  his  conception.  Now  let 
him  study  the  elements  of  geology  and  physical  geog- 
raphy,  and  learn  to  trace  the  connection  between  the 
shape  of  hills  and  the  rock  or  soil  composing  them, 
together  with  the  action  of  wind  and  water,  heat  and 
frost,  and  the  word  "  hills  "  will  still  have  yet  an  extended 
meaning. 

Still  Further.— Every  time  you  refer  an  object  to  a 
class,  as  when  you  .say,  "  Yonder  mass — it  may  be  In- 
gleboro' — is  a  hill,"  you  not  only  explain  the  thing  about 


22  "  7yHE  POT  OF  GREEN  FEATHERS." 

which  you  are  talking  (Ingleboro'),  but  you  also  add  to 
your  idea  of  the  class  to  which  you  refer  it  (hill).  The 
new  thing  is  explained  by  old  or  already  existing  ideas, 
but  for  the  service  which  the  old  does  the  new  in  thus 
interpreting  it  the  old  idea  receives  payment  or  recom- 
pense in  being  made  itself  more  clear. 

Suppose  you  have  a  dozen  pictures,  apes,  bears,  foxes, 
lions,  tigers,  etc.  Then  every  time  you  show  one  of 
these  to  a  child,  and  the  child  barns  to  say  "that  tiger 
is  an  animal,"  "that  lion  is  an  animal,"  he  not  only 
learns  something  about  the  tiger,  the  lion,  and  the  rest, 
but  also  extends  his  conception  of  what  an  animal  is. 
Hence  we  can  see  when  it  is  that  learning  a  name  is 
instructive :  it  is  when  the  name  is  a  record  of  something 
actually  witnessed.  If,  however,  you  tell  a  child  who 
does  not  know  what  a  ship  is,  or  what  wind  is,  or  what 
the  sea  is,  that  a  sail  is  the  canvas  on  which  the  wind 
blows  to  move  the  ship  across  the  sea,  the  names  are 
only  names,  and  do  not  add  to  his  knowledge  of  objects. 

The  Interpreting  Process  continually  at  Work. — So 
far  we  have  chiefly  considered  the  case  where  impres- 
sions from  the  outside  world  or  from  outward  objects 
are  being  interpreted  by  the  mind,  as  in  the  case  of 
violets,  the  pot  of  ferns,  and  the  like;  but  a  similar 
process  goes  on  wholly  in  the  mind  between  ideas  which 
exist  there  after  external  objects  have  been  removed. 
Consider  how  weak  fugitive  impressions  may  be 
strengthened  and  held  fast  by  this  process.  Alongside 
the  feeble,  and  therefore  fugitive,  impression  arises  a 
mass  of  previously  acquired  and  nearly  connected  im- 
pressions  and   ideas,  dominating  the  former,  and   by 


/ 


ASSIMILATION  OF  IMPRESSIONS.  2$ 

means  of  connections  with  other  stores  of  knowledge 
setting  up  a  movement  in  the  mind  which  lights  up  the 
obscure  impression,  defines  it,  and  fixes  it  in  the  mind 
ineradicably. 

Example. — For  example:  I  find  a  little  white  flower 
on  the  top  of  Great  Whernside,  Rub  us  Chammmorus. 
I  might  notice  it  for  a  moment  and  pass  on  oblivious. 
Suppose,  however,  that  it  occurs  to  me  next  day  to 
think  of  the  so-called  zones  of  vegetation,  and  how  the 
Pennine  Hills  were  once  covered  with  the  ice  sheet  like 
Greenland  now  is,  and  how  England  then  had  an  arctic 
flora,  and  how  it  may  be  that  this  flower,  which  in  Eng- 
land only  grows  2000  feet  above  the  sea,  being  killed  by 
the  warmth  of  lower  levels,  may  perhaps  be  a  botanical 
relic  of  that  surprising  geological  epoch,  and  then  what 
interest  attaches  to  that  flower.  Why  the  very  spot  on 
which  it  stands  seems  stamped  in  the  mind  indelibly. 

The  Psychological  Process  by  which  we  Learn. — 
Nothing  new  then  can  be  a  subject  of  knowledge  until 
it  is  not  merely  mechanically  associated  (as  a  passing- 
breeze  with  the  story  which  I  read  under  a  tree),  but 
associated  by  a  psychological  process,  with  something  in 
the  mind  which  is  already  stored  up  there,  the  new 
seeking  among  the  old  for  something  resembling  itself 
and  not  allowing  the  mind  j)eace  until  such  has  been 
found,  or  until  the  new  impression  has  passed  out  of 
consciousness. 

Not  Necessarily  a  Recognition  of  Self. — This  process 
of  interpreting  impressions  and  ideas  by  reference  to 
previous  impressions  and  ideas  must  not  be  confounded 
with  the  reference   of  such   interpreted  impressions  to 


24  "  THE  POT  OF  GREEN  FEATHERS:' 

self.  When  you  refer  this  process  to  self,  when  you 
recognize  yourself  as  going  through  the  process,  and  as 
being  the  subject  of  the  assimilating  process,  this  is 
self-observation.  You  may  have  this  self-consciousness 
either  along  with  the  interpreting  process,  or  after  it,  or 
not  at  all.  Dogs,  parrots,  and  many  animals  clearly  in- 
terpret impressions  and  objects  as  one  of  a  class, — as  a 
kitten  did  who,  after  eating  a  piece  of  raw  meat,  after- 
wards chewed  a  ball  of  red  blotting-paper,  inferring  it 
to  be  meat  from  its  color;  but  they  do  not  do  this  with 
recognition  of  self  as  the  subject  of  the  process.  Chil- 
dren do  not  appear  to  be  conscious  in  their  thoughts 
and  actions  much  before  they  are  three  years  old,  and 
their  minds  seem  at  first  much  to  resemble  the  minds  of 
animals. 

Application  of  the  Principle  in  the  School-room. — We 
may  now  further  apply  this  principle  of  the  growth  of 
the  mind  to-  practical  work  in  the  class-room.  When 
something  new  presents  itself  to  us,  it  does  not,  as  a 
rule,  except  when  it  affects  the  emotions  in  some  way, 
arrest  our  attention,  unless  it  is  connected  with  some- 
thing already  known  by  us. 

Example. — A  young  child  visited  the  British  Mu- 
seum, and  was  next  day  asked  what  he  had  noticed. 
He  remarked  upon  the  enormous  size  of  the  door  mats. 
Most  other  impressions  were  fugitive,  being  isolated  in 
his  mind.  The  mats  he  knew  about,  because  he  com- 
pared them  with  the  door  mat  at  home.  Among  all  the 
birds,  the  ''only  one  he  remembered  was  the  hen,  and 
passing  by  the  bears  and  tigers  with  indifference  he  was 
pleased  to  recognize  a  stuffed  specimen  of  the  domestic 


ASSIMILATION  OF  IMPRESSIONS.  2$ 

cat.  The  child  only  remembered  what  he  was  already 
familiar  with,  for  the  many  impressions  from  other  ob- 
jects neutralized  each  other,  and  passed  into  oblivion. 

Apply  the  Principle. — One  great  art  in  teaching  is  the 
art  of  finding  links  and  connections  between  isolated 
facts,  and  of  making  the  child  see  that  what  seems  quite 
new  is  an  extension  of  what  is  already  in  his  mind. 
Few  people  would  long  remember  the  name  and  date  of 
a  single  Chinese  king  picked  by  chance  from  a  list  ex- 
tending back  thousands  of  years.  Facts  of  English 
history  are  not  much  easier  to  remember  than  this  for 
children  who  are  not  gifted  with  strong  mechanical 
memories.  Hence  the  value  of  presenting  names,  dates, 
and  events,  in  connection  with  external  memorials,  such 
as  monuments,  buildings,  battlefields,  or  with  poems 
and  current  events,  and  the  like.  Story,  object,  and 
poem  illustrate  and  strengthen  each  other.  It  ought 
not  to  be  hard  to  teach  English  history  in  the  town  of 
York,  where  there  is  a  continuous  series  of  objects  illus- 
trating the  course  of  affairs  from  prehistoric  times  to 
the  present  date.  Our  object  in  teaching  should  be  to 
present  facts  in  organic  relation  to  each  other,  instead 
of  getting  them  learnt  by  heart  as  a  list  of  disconnected 
names. 

The  Child's  First  Task.— If,  then,  all  the  growth  of 
the  mind  takes  place  from  earliest  to  latest  years, 
through  the  apprehension  of  new  knowledge  by  old, 
then  the  first  business  of  the  young  child  in  the  world 
is  to  learn  to  interpret  rightly  the  impressions  that  he 
receives  from  objects.  To  receive  and  master  the  gifts 
of  his  senses  is  his  first  duty. 


26  "  THE   POT. OF  GREEN  FEATHERS: 


Does  not  Proceed  Systematically. — But  this  task 
cannot  in  the  early  stages  be  fulfilled  in  a  strictly  sys- 
tematic way.  You  cannot  present  all  the  world  piece- 
meal to  the  child,  object  after  object,  in  strictly  logical 
order.  One  educationist  objected  to  little  children 
visiting  a  wood  or  forest  because  the  different  sorts  of 
trees  were  there  all  jumbled  together  instead  of  being 
scientifically  classified  and  arranged  as  they  would  be  in 
a  botanical  garden.  The  child,  however,  must  take  the 
world  as  he  finds  it.  Impressions  come  crowding  in 
upon  him  in  such  numbers  that  he  has  no  time  at  first 
for  paying  minute  attention  to  any  one.  In  truth  so 
massed  and  grouped  are  his  impressions,  that  one  may 
almost  say  that  the  outer  world  presents  itself  to  him  as 
a  whole — of  course  an  obscure  unanalyzed  whole, — and 
that  it  is  a  matter  of  difficulty  to  isolate  one  perception 
clearly  from  its  concomitant  perceptions. 

Impressions  from  Actual  Life  Lead. — The  whole  must 
be  analyzed  into  parts  bit  by  bit.  Out  of  the  mass  of 
obscure  and  ill-defined  impressions,  educationists  should 
study  which  are  they  which  stand  out  and  arrest  atten- 
tion most  readily,  and  in  what  order  they  do  this  ?  We 
do  not  find  that  those  impressions  are  most  striking 
which  are  logically  the  most  important,  but  rather  those 
to  which  the  practical  needs  of  daily  life  give  promi- 
nence— food,  clothing,  parents,  brothers,  sisters,  other 
children  and  their  experiences.  Such  are  the  things 
that  children  are  most  taken  up  with.  But  each  im- 
pression once  grasped  is  the  basis  or  starting-point  for 
understanding  another,  and  thus  the  manifold  variety  of 


ASSIMILATION   OF  IMPRESSIONS.  2J 

objects  is  simplified  and  brought  within  the  compass  of 
memory  by  a  sort  of  unconscious  reasouing. 

Example. — A  child,  for  instance,  who  kept  a  chicken, 
but  never  saw  a  chicken  at  table,  being  limited  in  its 
meat  diet  to  beef,  when  at  last  the  chicken  came  to  tab! 
roasted,  called  it  "hen-beef,"  clearly  interpreting  by  an 
elementary  process  of  reasoning  the  new  by  the  old. 
Take  a  child  to  a  wild-beast  show  and  observe  how  he 
names  the  animals  by  aid  of  a  very  general  resemblance 
to  those  he  may  previously  know.  The  elephant  is  a 
donkey  because  he  has  four  legs;  the  otter  is  a  fish;  and 
so  on.  These  comparisons  are  not  jests,  nor  even  mere 
play  of  fancy,  but  the  result  of  an  effort  of  an  inexperi- 
enced mind  to  assimilate  new  impressions.  The  child 
is  only  following  the  mental  process  which  we  all  have 
to  follow  in  becoming  masters  of  our  impressions  and 
extending  our  knowledge.  Clearly  the  limited  stock  of 
ideas  of  the  child  renders  it  easier  for  him  to  make  mis- 
takes than  for  us  to  do  so,  but  in  some  matters  it  is  well 
to  remember  that  we  are  no  further  advanced  than  chil- 
dren, and  consequently  often  behave  as  such. 

Another  Example. — A  little  French  child,  a  year  old, 
who  had  travelled  much,  named  an  engine  Fafer  (its 
way  of  saying  Chemin  de  fer) ;  afterwards  it  named 
steamboat,  coffee-pot,  and  spirit-lamp,  anything  in  short 
that  hissed  and  smoked,  "  fafer  " — the  obvious  points  of 
resemblance  spontaneously  fusing  together  in  the  child's 
mind  and  becoming  classified,  not  quite  incorrectly. 
Another  child  who  learnt  to  call  a  star  by  its  right 
name  applied  star  as  a  name  to  candle,  gas,  and  other 


25  "  THE  POT  OF  GREEN  FEATHERS." 

bright  objects,  clearly  interpreting  the  new  by  the  old, 
by  use  of  an  unconscious  elementary  classification  or 
reasoning. 

Value  of  Names. — Thus  we  see  the  value  and  helpful- 
ness of  language,  in  the  process  of  acquiring  and  inter- 
preting impressions.  Having  once  separated  out  from 
the  indistinct  masses  of  impressions  borne  in  upon  him 
from  the  outside  world  some  one  distinct  impression, 
and  having  marked  that  impression  with  a  name,  the 
child  is  thenceforth  readily  able  to  recognize  the  same 
impression  (in  this  instance  that  of  brightness)  when 
mixed  up  with  quite  other  masses  of  impressions,  and 
to  fix  its  attention  on  that  one  alone. 

The  Word  a  Mental  Help. — Thus  the  word  helps  the 
mind  to  grow  and  expand.  The  use  of  the  word  is  a 
real  help  to  the  knowledge  of  things.  The  name  when 
learnt  in  connection  with,  the  observation  and  handling 
of  an  object  is  not  merely  a  name,  a  barren  symbol  for 
nothing  signified,  but  is  a  means  for  acquiring  fresh 
knowledge  as  occasion  serves.  A  name  thus  learnt  (i.e., 
in  presence  of  the  object),  when  applied  by  the  learner 
to  a  new  impression  exactly  resembling  the  former,  is 
really  an  expression  of  and  an  addition  to  the  mental 
stores.  It  is  then  as  the  filling  in  of  a  sketch  or  as  the 
further  completion  of  an  unfinished  circle. 

Names  should  be  Given  in  Presence  of  Object. — How 
different  is  such  naming  from  learning  by  heart  of 
names  of  objects  without  handling  the  things  signified. 
How  often  have  text-books  of  science,  geography,  and 
history  been  prescribed  to  be  got  up  for  examination, 


ASSIMILATION  OF  IMPRESSIONS.  29 

and  how  often  have  the  results  been  disappointing.  The 
student  thus  taught  sees  only  the  difference  of  a  letter 
in  the  alphabet  between  Carbonic  Acid  and  OarboLic 
Acid,  Jacobix  and  Jacobixe,  and  a  mere  transposition  of 
a  figure  in  expressing  an  incline  as  S  inches  in  1  mile, 
instead  of  1  inch  in  8  miles.  The  words  call  up  no 
mental  image.  The  figure  8  is  a  symbol  only  as  it  does 
not  call  up  the  image  of  8  things.  A  name  given  in  the 
presence  of  the  object  serves  afterwards  to  recall  the 
image  or  picture  of  that  object,  and  it  does  this  the 
more  perfectly  the  more  accurately  the  object  is  studied 
in  the  first  instance. 

Why  Gestures  are  Used. — Children  for  want  of  lan- 
guage signify  many  of  their  impressions  by  gestures 
before  they  can  describe  them  in  words;  and  gesture 
language,  especially  if  encouraged,  precedes  spoken 
language,  besides  accompanying  it.  Children  are  imita- 
tive: they  love  to  act  over  again  what  they  have  seen, 
especially  when  much  impressed,  as  in  George  Eliot's 
pathetic  description  of  the  baby-boy  attending  his 
mothers  funeral  in  puzzled  wonder,  and  thinking  how 
"he  would  play  at  this  with  his  sister  when  he  got 
home.''  With  children,  this  "  acting,"  or  "playiEg  at 
being,"  more  resembles  talking  over,  giving  expression 
to  and  describing  what  has  been  seen,  noted,  and  as 
similated,  than  aimless  exercise  of  the  muscles  and  the 
intelligence. 

Frobel. — How  profoundly  right,  therefore,  Frobel 
was  in  making  so  much  of  action-songs  in  his  Kinder- 
garten, and  how  excellent  his  games  are  in  which  every 


30  "  THE  POT  OF  GREEN  FEATHERS." 

action  of  the  child  corresponds  to  some  observed  impres- 
sions with  which  the  child  is  familiar.  Frobel's  actions 
correspond  to  realities,  and  are  not  mere  physical  move- 
ments. They  are  forms  of  expression  of  things.  They 
correspond  to  facts,  and  advance  the  observation  and 
knowledge  of  things  which  ought  to  be  familiar  to 
every  one,  such  as  sowing,  reaping. 


THE    LESSON  FOR    TEACHERS.  3 1 


IV. 


Why  the  Child  said  "  Feathers." — Now  to  go  back  to 
my  pot  of  ferns.  The  child  sees  ferns  for  the  first  time, 
and  cannot  tell  what  they  are.  He  receives  impressions 
which  are  new,  and  these  seek  interpretation  in  the  man- 
ner which  I  have  described.  They  hunt  about  in  the 
mind  for  similar  impressions  previously  received;  at 
last  the  impression  of  the  fern  attaches  itself  to  the 
impression  of  feathers;  the  crisp  curl  of  the  frond 
and  its  delicate  branches  much  resemble  feathers;  it 
is  true  there  is  a  hindrance  to  the  judgment;  the 
fern  is  not  quite  like  the  feather;  some  points  are  like 
and  some  are  not;  in  the  end,  however,  those  which  are 
alike  overpower  those  which  are  unlike,  and  the  child 
says,   "  These  are  feathers." 

Such  a  Reply  not  to  be  Censured. — The  child  has  not 
got  false  impressions;  he  interprets  wrongly;  further 
study,  fresh  observation  and  comparison,  will  soon  rec- 
tify the  error.  Ilence  the  need  of  taking  "areful  note 
of  children's  mistakes,  distinguishing  between  thought- 
less answers  and  those  which,  although  very  wrong, 
arise  from  mental  effort  misdirected.  Careless  answers 
should  be  checked,  but  well-meant  thought,  even  if  un- 
successful, should  be  encouraged.     Therefore  an  answer 


32     "  THE  POT  OF  GREElf  FEATHERS." 

like  that  of  the  "  green  feathers  "  should  be  dealt  witl 
in  the  way  of  praise  rather  than  censure. 

Effects  of  the  New  Ideas. — Sometimes  it  is  not  merely 
an  object  that  is  incorrectly  interpreted,  and  subse- 
quently better  understood.  It  occasionally  happens  tc 
us  that  a  whole  group  of  thoughts  is  thus  modified  bj 
the  acquisition  of  some  new  knowledge,  and  instead  oi 
the  new  merely  forming  an  addition  to  the  old,  it  wholly 
changes  it.  Such  was  the  result  of  the  teaching  of  Co- 
pernicus and  Galileo,  and  in  our  own  day  of  Darwin. 
The  discoveries  of  these  men  caused  such  wide-reaching 
alteration  of  preconceived  ideas  that  the  new  knowledge 
was  at  first  received  with  discomfort  and  mental  un- 
easiness, which  caused  the  discoverer  to  be  looked  upon 
with  suspicion,  regarded  as  any  enemy,  and  persecuted. 
When  in  the  case  of  an  individual  some  new  conception 
changes  the  character  in  this  way  by  some  powerful  in- 
fluence, as  in  the  case  of  St.  Paul,  we  call  it  a  "  conver- 
sion." 

The  Old  Finds  a  Place  for  the  New. — "Well,  then,  it 
may  be  said,  in  these  cases  your  position  is  given  up. 
The  new  should  be  regarded  as  the  means  by  which  the 
old  is  known,  instead  of  fae  old  as  interpreting  the 
new.  But  this  is  not  the  case,  for  however  overpower- 
ing the  new  conception  may  be  for  a  time,  yet  in  the  end 
the  whole  store  of  knowledge  in  the  mind  proves  too 
strong  for  it,  overpowers  it,  and  finds  some  place  for  it, 
after  which  the  mind  is  at  peace  with  itself,  and  appears 
to  have  been  enlarged  and  not  diminished  or  divided  by 
the  fresh  experience,  however  strange  and  unusual  it 
may  have  been. 


THE   LESSON  FOR    TEACHERS.  33 

Children  need  Aid  in  Naming. — I  have  shown,  then, 
that  when  the  child  called  a  pot  of  ferns  a  "  pot  of 
green  feathers  "  he  was  by  no  means  using  a  name  with- 
out attaching  any  meaning  to  it,  and  that  he  should 
have  been  encouraged  for  a  praiseworthy  effort  to  explain 
what  he  saw.  It  is,  however,  the  business  of  parents 
and  teachers  to  help  the  child  to  learn  exactly  what  it 
is  that  he  names. 

Example. — A  child,  for  instance,  saw  a  duck  on  the 
water,  and  was  taught  to  call  it  "  Quack."  But  the 
child  included  in  this  name  the  water  as  well  as  the  duck, 
and  then  applied  it  to  all  birds  on  the  one  hand  and  all 
liquids  on  the  other,  calling  a  French  coin  with  the  eagle 
on  it  a  "  Quack,"  and  also  a  bottle  of  French  wine 
"  Quack."  Such  a  mistake  in  naming  is  to  be  guarded 
against,  as  -obviously  tending  to  confusion  of  thought. 
The  poet  Schiller  as  a  child  lived  by  the  Necker,  and 
called  all  rivers  which  he  saw  "  Necker."  Such  an  error 
is  less  serious  as  it  is  easily  put  right.  If  the  child  notes 
its  impressions  and  refer  them  intelligently  to  previous 
impressions  as  best  it  can,  then  it  is  not  important  if.  he 
is  not  quite  correct  about  names. 


V. 


The  Lesson  for  Teachers. — We — teachers  and  parents 
— may  take  a  hint  from  this,  and  be  more  ready  to  give 
class-names  to  begin  with,  leaving  details  to  come  later. 
Teach  the  child  in  front  of  a  picture  of  a  herring,  or 
better,  pictures  of  herring,  sole,  and  pike,  "  That  is  a 
fish  "  first  of  all,  and  only  afterwards  "  That  fish  is  a 
herring."  For  teaching  general  names,  such  as  bird, 
beast,  fish,  and  reptile,  in  presence  of  pictures  of  eagle, 
cow,  herring,  and  adder,  has  a  twofold  use.  The  class 
name  (fish,  beast,  etc.)  thus  given  (1)  directs  the  child's 
attention  to  a  few  points  among  many,  and  those  easy 
to  grasp,  and  hence  is  a  guide  to  the  child's  mental 
powers,  which  are  apt  to  be  overwhelmed  by  the  num- 
ber of  individual  impressions  of  things,  all  disconnected 
and  isolated,  much  in  the  same  way  as  in  an  intricate 
country  full  of  cross-roads  your  way  is  made  easy  if  you 
are  told  to  ignore  all  other  tracks  and  follow  the  road 
bordered  by  telegraph-posts,  and  (2)  it  enables  the  child 
to  understand  the  usual  conversation  of  its  elders  and 
the  words  and  language  in  books. 

Relation  of  Names  to  Knowledge. — Grown-up  people 
use  general  terms  in  daily  conversation  which  children 
only  slowly  acquire  without  help  from  teachers.  Many 
of  these  simpler  class  names  are  easily  taught  and  are  a 


ADVANCED   STAGES.  35 

pleasure  to  the  children  to  learn,  for  they  answer  to  the 
natural  early  stages  of  elementary  reasoning.  Country 
children  often  have  a  small  vocabulary  of  general  terms 
compared  with  town  children,  and  less  understand  the 
language  of  books ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  from  exercising 
their  senses  on  objects  and  being  brought  into  close  con- 
tact with  out-of-door  work  they  often  have  a  greater  real 
power  of  observing  and  interpreting  things  outside  them- 
selves, and  greater  originality  in  this  respect  than  town 
children,  who  are  sharper  in  talk  and  society.  However, 
both  kinds,  the  knowledge  of  language  and  the  mastery 
of  objects,  should  be  taught  together,  for  both  are  indis- 
pensable in  life. 

Children  note  Superficial  Resemblance. — Young  chil- 
dren are  perhaps  quicker  than  older  people  to  note  super- 
ficial resemblance  of  things.  Because,  no  doubt,  they 
have  fewer  old  impressions  stored  in  the  mind  wherewith 
to  compare  new  impressions,  and  comparison  among  a 
few  things  is  more  rapidly  and  expeditiously  made.  They 
have  to  pay  for  this  advantage,  however,  because  they 
are  liable  to  misinterpret  impressions  —to  call  a  pot  of 
ferns  a  pot  of  feathers,  to  refer  impressions  to  the  wrong 
group  in  their  mind,  groups  with  which  they  are  acci- 
dentally and  not  logically  connected. 

Often  Endow  Objects  with  Personality. — What  is  more, 
objects  are  not  so  clearly  distinguished — set  over  against 
each  other — with  children  as  with  grown  people.  Chil- 
dren hardly  distinguish  themselves  into  soul  and  body. 
They  know  of  their  undivided  personality — body,  mind, 
and  soul — that  it  moves,  feels  happy,  sad,  hungry,  etc., 
and  they  attribute  the  same  feelings  to  all  other  thin 


"<6  "  THE  POT  OF  GREEN  FEATHERS." 

Birds,  beasts,  and  inanimate  objects  are  like  affected  as 
themselves.  "  Jack  the  dog  is  thirsty/'  "  Poll  is  angry," 
"  Kitty  is  sleepy,"  "  the  stars  blink,"  "  the  engine  goes 
to  bed,"  "  the  knife  is  naughty  to  cut  me. "  They  do 
not  distinguish  between  figures  of  speech  or  metaphors 
and  realities.  Their  minds  move  in  a  region  of  twilight, 
in  which  the  real  and  the  unreal,  the  true  additions  to 
knowledge,  the  actual  gifts  of  the  senses,  are  confused 
and  blurred  and  altered  by  the  additions  which  the 
mind  itself  makes  to  them,  and  they  cannot  separate  the 
one  from  the  other. 

Hence  the  Use  of  Fairy  Stories. — To  this  stage  of 
mental  progress  how  appropriate  are  fables,  allegories, 
fairy  stories,  parables,  and  the  like.  If  any  one  thinks 
that  it  would  be  better  if  the  child's  mind  could  move 
only  in  the  sphere  of  the  exact,  I  would  reply,  (1)  that 
this  does  not  seem  to  be  nature's  process,  (2)  that  look- 
ing to  the  mode  of  growth  of  the  mind  it  does  not  seem 
even  possible,  and  (3)  that  if  you  try  to  keep  the  child's 
mind  to  exactness  you  may  clip  and  pluck  the  wings  of 
imagination. 

Imagination  Important. — Now  without  imagination 
there  is  little  advance  in  knowledge,  little  discovery  in 
the  sphere  of  science  and  in  the  sphere  of  morality; 
without  some  imagination  you  are  quite  unable  to  put 
yourself  in  the  place  of  another,  which  is  the  basis  of 
sympathy  and  mental  support,  and  the  foundation  of 
the  social  fabric.  The  mere  sight  of  a  neighbor's  joy 
or  sorrow  does  not  awaken  sympathy.     - 

Example. — Three  little  children  were  thrown  out  of  a 
train  in  an  accident,  and  one  was  frightfully  mangled  to 


ADVANCED    STAGES.  37 

death;  but  the  other  two,  who  were  unhurt,  and  could 
not  realize  what  had  happened,  stooped  down  and  went 
on  plucking  daisies  with  unconcern.  In  the  case  of  young 
children  you  can  hardly  go  too  far  in  the  way  of  associat- 
ing new  learning  with  personal  feeling,  even  at  the  ex- 
pense of  exactness,  and  the  infant-school  teacher  who,  in 
a  lesson  on  the  sun,  instead  of  dwelling  on  its  roundness, 
brightness,  and  heat,  began  by  calling  it  a  lamp  in  the 
sky,  lighted  in  the  morning  and  put  out  at  night; 
lighted  for  men  to  go  about  their  work,  and  put  out  for 
them  to  go  to  sleep,  showed  a  true  knowledge  of  the  key 
that  opens  the  door  into  the  child's  mind. 

Childrens'  Ways  must  be  Studied. — This  information 
is  not  exact,  but  inasmuch  as  it  is  based  on  what  children 
understand  and  like  to  hear  about,  it  finds  a  ready  en- 
trance into  their  minds.  But  it  is  clear  that  what  is  to 
the  child  its  natural  mode  of  expression  is  arrived  at  by 
the  teacher  only  through  imagination,  and  hence  arises 
the  teacher's  difficulty.  It  is  a  useful  hint  to  study  the 
children's  own  lead  and  follow  it.  School  necessarily 
limits  the  child's  life.  You  cannot  bring  all  creation 
into  the  four  walls  of  the  class-room.  But  what  you 
lose  in  extent  you  gain  in  depth :  you  lose  variety,  you 
gain  in  concentration.  Before  school-time,  all  things 
engage  the  child's  attention  in  turns,  and  nothing  long. 
At  school  he  has  to  attend  to  a  few  things,  and  to  keep 
his  attention  fixed  upon  them  for  short  periods  at  first, 
but  for  increasingly  longer  ones.  It  is  a  matter  of  prac- 
tice and  experience  to  find  out  what  things  most  readily 
arrest  attention,  and  in  what  way  information  can 


38  "  THE   POT  OF  GREEN  FEATHERS." 

be  conveyed  so  as  to  arrest  attention,  and  it  is  in  these 
matters  that  the  skill  of  the  teacher  comes  in. 

The  Teacher's  Art. — I  am  not  sure  that  if  the  teach- 
er's art  is  to  be  summed  up  briefly  it  may  not  be  de- 
scribed as  the  art  of  developing  the  power  of  fixing 
attention.  For  instance,  when  we  present  a  picture  or 
even  an  object  to  a  child,  neither  object  nor  (still  less) 
picture  explains  itself.  The  object  needs  to  be  pointed 
out  piecemeal,  and  all  its  parts  called  attention  to  sepa- 
rately, for  the  child  only  sees  it  as  a  whole,  about  which 
it  can  say  but  little  and  soon  tires  of.  The  picture  but 
very  partially  represents  the  objects  which  the  artist 
depicts,  much  being  suggested  and  left  to  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  beholder.  Even  when  we  say  we  actually 
see  an  object  we  forget  how  much  of  what  we  think  we 
see  is  really  inference  from  some  small  part  of  what  we 
see,  and  nothing  is  more  deceptive  than  merely  ocular 
evidence.  Thus  pictures  of  things  which  the  children 
have  seen  are  much  better  to  commence  with  than  pic- 
tures of  things  which  they  have  not  seen,  and  the  former 
should  serve  as  a  preparation  for  the  latter. 

Difficulties  in  Teaching. — But  even  pictures  will  only 
go  a  certain  way  in  making  known  to  us  things  past  and 
things  remote,  facts  of  history  and  geography.  The 
\Jrreater  part  of  advanced  instruction  must  be  conveyed 
by  words.  Is  it  an  historical  scene  we  are  treating  of  ? 
The  child  and  many  grown  people  interpret  all  by  their 
own  experience;  towns  and  houses  in  history  resemble 
in  his  mind  those  with  which  he  is  familiar;  men  and 
women  move  about  in  the  dresses  of  his  near  neighbors ; 
their  aspect  and  language  are  in  his  mind  the  same  as 


ADVANCED    STAGES.  39 

those  of  his  people  with  whom  he  daily  converses.  Such 
inaccuracies  may  be  partly  corrected,  but  in  the  main 
they  are  unavoidable.  History  cannot  be  communicated 
with  complete  truth;  the  lives  of  men  and  women  per- 
sonally unknown  can  be  only  partially  conceived.  Hence 
Goethe  says,  "  The  past  is  a  book  with  seven  seals." 

The  Past  Known  through  the  Present. — The  best 
plan  is  to  read  the  past  with  one  eye  on  the  present.  Look 
at  the  pictures  of  the  Holy  Family  as  drawn  by  Italian 
and  Dutch  painters.  The  chief  fact  which  they  in- 
tended to  depict  is  not  obscured  but  made  clearer  by 
the  painter  having  made  the  homely  surroundings 
French  and  Italian  rather  than  original.  In  History 
and  Geography,  in  order  to  help  the  child  to  understand 
old  times  and  realize  what  distant  lands  are,  we  must 
store  his  mind  with  conceptions  based  upon  frequent 
observations  of  present  time,  and  of  his  own  home  and 
its  surroundings. 

Example. — How  far  such  observations  may  carry  the 
student  in  interpreting  the  unseen,  is  proved  by  the 
beauty  and  correctness  of  the  descriptions  of  Alpine 
Countries,  which  were  written  by  Schiller  before  he  had 
seen  the  Alps.  In  history  the  most  human  part  of  the 
narrative  takes  the  firmest  hold  of  the  mind,  and  the 
story  of  "  King  Alfred  and  the  Cakes,"  though  not  a 
very  noble  historical  anecdote,  serves  at  least  to  fix  the 
name  of  the  king  in  the  child's  mind,  who  would  not  so 
easily  remember  the  peace  of  Wedmore.  Eating  he 
knows  more  about  than  making  treaties. 


40  "  THE   POT  OF  GREEN  FEATHERS." 


YL 

^'Advanced  Stages. — We  may  now  trace  the  process  of 
acquiring  knowledge  in  its  more  advanced  stage.  The 
child  has  now  learned  that  a  pot  of  ferns  is  not  a  pot  of 
feathers.  Perhaps,  however,  he  has  only  seen  one  kind 
of  fern — say  a  Lady-fern.  After  a  few  weeks  he  may 
see  another — perhaps  a  Maiden-hair.  The  points  of 
resemblance  between  the  two  make  him  say,  "  That  is  a 
fern : "  the  points  of  difference  hinder  the  process  of 
assimilation  and  make  him  doubt;  in  the  end  the 
mass  of  old  impressions  resembling  each  other  over- 
power impressions  which  differ,  and  he  says,  "  This  is  a 
fern,"  and  in  so  doing  he  enlarges  his  conception  of 
what  a  fern  is. 

Let  us  now  suppose  that  he  comes  across  a  good 
teacher  who  shows  him  many  kinds  of  ferns,  and  points 
out  the  difference  between  ferns  and  flowering  plants 
and  mosses.  Every  fresh  distinction,  every  observation 
of  a  new  fern,  helps  to  modify  his  previous  knowledge. 
Old  and  new  impressions  react  on  each  other. 

Now  Uses  Judgment. — But  now  mark  how  essentially 
the  same  and  yet  how  different  are  the  two  mental 
states:  the  earlier  one,  namely,  when  the  child  (I 
would  say  the  child's  mind)  recognizes  of  its  own  accord 
the  second  plant  us  a  fern  by  means  of  its  previous  ac- 


THE    OBJECT  OF  LEARNING.  4 1 

quaintance  with  another  fern,  judging  from  a  more  or 
less  superficial  resemblance,  and  the  latter  state  of  mind 
when  he  has  learnt  all  the  scientific  distinctions  by 
which  a  fern  is  classified  in  a  different  class  from  flow- 
ering plants  and  mosses.  We  have  now  passed  from 
Infant  School  learning  to  the  instruction  which  is  ap- 
propriate to  the  Upper  School  and  the  advanced  classes. 
The  child  has  outgrown  a  state  in  which  the  mind  rea- 
sons unconsciously,  and  has  arrived  at  a  state  in  which 
reasoning  is  conscious;  he  has  left  behind  a  condition  or 
stage  of  development  in  which  he  was  at  the  mercy  of 
his  impressions,  and  has  progressed  to  a  state  of  mind  in 
which  he  can  compare,  check,  and  control  his  impres- 
sions. He  has  passed  from  a  state  in  which  he  uncon- 
sciously accepted  what  was  present  to  his  mind  to  a 
state  in  which  he  can  infer,  judge,  and  criticise. 

Looks  More  Closely. — The  pot  of  ferns  is  now  seen  to 
have  more  points  in  which  it  is  unlike  feathers  than 
points  in  which  it  resembles  them.  Of  the  many  im- 
pressions derived  from  looking  at  the  pot  of  ferns,  the 
feather-like  impression  which  at  first  stands  out  from 
the  rest  and  forces  itself  on  the  mind,  to  the  exclusion 
of  the  other  impressions  which  would,  if  attended  to, 
modify  the  judgment,  is  now  by  means  of  conscious 
reasoning  brought  under  proper  control,  and  put  in  a 
subordinate  position.  What  appeared  to  be  a  fact  is 
now  seen  to  be  a  fancy,  and  after  all  a  fancy  which  ex- 
presses some  element  of  truth — viz.,  the  resemblance 
between  ferns  and  feathers. 

As  Illusions  and  Fancies. — These  considerations,  per- 
haps, throw  some  light  upon  Dr.  Allbutt's  warning  to 


42  "  THE   POT  OF  GREEN  FEATHERS." 

parents  about  the  dreams  and  illusions  of  children. 
The  fancies  of  childhood,  he  thinks,  are  sometimes  the 
ante-chamber  of  insanity  in  adults.  I  do  not  think  ho 
intended  to  knock  on  the  head  many  poetic  and  popular 
conceptions  about  children's  pretty  fancies,  as  was  stated 
in  some  evening  review  of  his  remarks.*     It  is  clear, 

*  Childhood's  Dreams:  Imagination  or  Insanity?  In  the 
course  of  the  meeting  of  the  Medico-Psychological  Association 
held  at  York  Dr.  Clifford  Allbutt  (of  Leeds)  read  a  paper  on  the 
"Insanity  of  Children,"  which,  if  its  statements  be  well  founded, 
knocks  on  the  head  many  poetic  and  popular  conceptions.  Words- 
worth speaks  of  a  child's  ideas  being  a  reminiscence  of  ' '  the  fairy 
palace  whence  he  comes."  Dr.  Allbutt  sees  in  them  only  a  step 
towards  the  insane  asylum.  Most  people  regard  it  as  a  healthy 
sign  if  the  children  have  pretty  fancies,  and  those  are  thought  to 
be  happiest  who  keep  their  illusions  longest.  But  Dr.  Albutt 
would  reverse  this  judgment.  The  fairy  dreams  of  childhood  are 
only  the  result  of  defective  organization,  and  healthy  growth  con- 
sists in  their  evaporation. 

Here  are  some  of  the  chief  passages  in  Dr.  Allbutt's  paper : 
The  insanity  of  children  was  the  vestibule  of  the  insanity  of 
adults  ;  in  children  they  saw  in  simple  primary  forms  that  with 
which  they  were  familiar  in  the  more  complex  and  derivative 
forms  of  insanity  in  adults.  If  a  man  lived  in  a  vain  show,  far 
more  so  did  the  child  ;  if  a  man's  mind  was  but  a  phantom  in  re- 
lation to  the  world,  so  fantastic  was  the  child's  mind  in  relation 
to  that  of  the  man.  Fantastic — that  was  the  key  to  the  childish 
mind.  In  him  was  no  definite  boundary  between  the  real  and  the 
unreal.  Day-dreams  which  in  an  adult  would  be  absurd,  were  to 
a  child  the  only  realities.  As  the  child  grew  older,  and  sense 
impressions  organized  themselves  more  definitely  and  submitted 
to  comparison,  fantasy  became  make-believe  and  the  child 
slipped  backwards  and  forwards  between  unconscious,  semi-con- 
scious, and  conscious  self-deception.     Pretty  were  the  fancies  of  a 


THE    OBJECT  OF  LEARNING. 


however,  that  the  crude  method  of  assimilating  knowl- 
edge, which  is  natural  and  apparently  inevitable  in  a 
child,  ought  by  degrees  to  yield  to  more  accurate  con- 
ceptions under  the  influence  of  wise  instructions. 

Suggestions. — It  is  one  thing  to  confuse  ideas  uncon- 
sciously; it  is  another  thing  to  do  so  consciously.  The 
child  makes  an  unconscious  mistake  in  calling  ferns 
feathers,  but  if  this  confusion  is  cherished  by  the  child 
after  he  well  knows  the  real  distinction  between  the 
two,  and  if  he  acquires  or  cultivates  a  habit  of  mind  in 
which  reality  is  made  to  give  way  to  make-believe  and 
pretence,  the  child  may  lose  control  over  its  judgment 
and  become  in  the  end  imbecile.  The  best  antidote  to 
foolish  imaginings  appears  to  me  to  be  the  time-hon- 
ored fables  of  xEsop,  the  sacred  parables  and  allegories, 
and  the  best  modern  fancies  for  children,  like  those  of 
Andersen  or  Ruskin.  Fantastic  the  child  will  be  it  is 
our  business  to  make  his  fancy  healthy.  f 

.     The  Object  of  Learning. — The  object,  then,  of  learn-  j 
ing  in  education  is  not  only  to  make  the  mind  fuller/^. 
and  to  enrich  the  understanding,  but  if  the  instruction 
be  of  the  right  kind  the  additional  knowledge  ought  to 

child,  yet  the  healthy  growth  of  the  child  consisted  in  their  evap- 
oration. But  if  the  growth  of  the  mind  were  something  other 
than  healthy,  then  these  fancies  kept  their  empire  ;  they  did  not 
attenuate,  and  the  child  did  not  put  off  its  visions.  They  were 
not  likely  to  forget  that  the  persistence  of  insanity  in  children 
might  prevent  the  due  advance  of  the  organization  of  the  results 
of  impressions,  and  might  ultimately,  as  the  adolescence  ap- 
proached, leave  the  sufferer  in  a  state  of  more  or  less  imbecility. 
— Pall  Mall  Gazette. 


44  "THE  POT   OF  GREEN  FEATHERS." 

make  the  old  knowledge  more  exact  and  better  defined. 
The  method  of  acquiring  the  extended  knowledge,  also, 
ought  to  have  even  more  far-reaching  results  than  the 
information  itself.  Accustomed  to  right  methods  of 
study  the  child  will  learn  to  be  cautious  in  dealing  with 
fresh  impressions,  to  feel  the  pleasure  of  receiving  new 
impressions  and  the  need  of  care  in  referring  them  to 
their  proper  class,  to  realize  the  danger  to  which  every 
one  is  liable  of  forming  hasty  judgments,  and  to  weigh 
evidence  for  and  against  a  provisional  judgment. 

Further. — In  short,  study  ought  at  least  to  make  the 
\student  acquainted  with  the  limits  of  knowledge  in 
general,  and  the  limitations  of  Ms  knowledge  in  particu- 
lar. The  country  proverb,  "  He  does  not  know  a  hawk 
from  a  heronshaw,"  illustrates  the  sort  of  progress  that 
learning  should  produce  in  a  child.  He  must  acquire 
at  school  the  power  of  apprehending  quickly  and  cor- 
rectly. He  must  become  sharp  in  receiving  impressions, 
and  accurate  in  referring  them  to  the  class  to  which, 
not  fancy,  but  reasoned  judgment,  leads  him  to  refer 
them. 

How  Educate  by  Acquiring  Knowledge. — Accurate 
and  complete  conceptions,  true  logical  definitions  in  all 
matters  that  we  deal  with  in  daily  life,  cannot  be  ob- 
tained by  any  of  us.  We  can  only  keep  the  ideal  of 
perfect  knowledge  before  onr  eyes  as  a  guide  to  us  in 
the  path  of  right  knowledge.     The  educational  value 

Vof  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  is  to  improve  the  natu- 
s  ral  powers  of  thought  and  judgment,  and  to  enahh^ 
the  learner  to  deal  with  the  masses  of  observed  facts 
which  press  more  and  more  heavily  on  us  as  we  have  to 


THE   OBJECT  OF  LEARNING.  45 

move  amid  the  complications  of  mature  life.  In  ac- 
quiring knowledge  the  mind  is  naturally  active,  and  not 
merely  passive.  The  active  element  is  most  precious, 
and  modern  education  often  tends  to  strangle  it.  Yet 
instruction  which  does  not  add  increased  energy  to  the 
\  ainking  powers  is  failing  its  purpose.  Learning  can- 
not be  free  from  drudgery,  and  a  great  deal  of  the  pro- 
cess of  teaching  and  learning — say  what  you  will — must 
be  a  tax  on  patience  and  endurance;  neither  can  we 
entirely  dispense  with  the  mere  mechanical  exercise  of 
the  memory;  but  if  the  method  pursued  is  correct,  the 
drudgery  ends  in  an  increase  of  the  energy  of  the  mind, 
and  a  desire  and  a  power  to  advance  to  new  knowledge 
and  discovery. 

Two  Purposes  in  Education. — You  cannot  undertake 
at  school  to  fit  every  child  for  entering  a  trade,  or  craft, 
or  profession,  without  further  learning;  but  what  he  has 
learnt  as  a  child  ought  to  develop  his  constructive  facul- 
ties, and  to  enable  him  to  deal  effectively  with  the  mat- 
ter which  he  will  have  to  handle  in  the  stern  school  of 
life.  And  if,  in  addition  to  this,  lie  has  acquired  an  in- 
grained preference  for  the  good  before  the  bad,  the  true 
before  the  false,-  the  beautiful  before  the  foul,  and  what 
is  of  God  before  what  is  of  the  Devil,  his  education  has 
been  as  complete  as  it  admits  of  being  made. 

Can  only  develop  Original  Power. — As  in  the  early 
stages  of  life,  so  in  the  later,  our  knowledge  and  our 
conduct  depend  as  much  on  what  is  within  us  as  on 
what  is  without.  The  work  of  life  cannot  be  well  done 
mechanically;  in  this  every  one  must  be  partly  original 
and  constructive,  for  the  world  is  not  merely  what  we 


46  "THE   POJ    tAru^2_________ 

O  Lady,  we  receive  but  what  we  give, 
And  in  our  life  alone  does  nature  live; 
Ours  is  her  wedding  garment,  ours  her  shroud  ! 
And  would  we  ought  behold  of  higher  worth 
Than  that  inanimate  cold  world  allowed 
To  the  poor,  loveless,  ever  anxious  crowd? 
Ah  i  from  the  soul  itself  must  issue  forth 
A  light,  a  glory,  a  fair  luminous  cloud 
Enveloping  the  earth. 

That  education  is  the  best,  not  whieh  imparts  the  greatest 
amount  oTkno.ledge,  hut  which  develops  the  greatest 
amount  of  mental  force. 


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